Piano Keys & Dirty Knees
by raining-down-hearts
Summary: Dire Circus drabbles! Silly little bits and pieces from the Dire Circus universe, gathered here from my tumblr all in one place for convenient reading. More to be added as I write them over time. They vary and are a bit random, so if you read something that hasn't happened (i.e. Maka's got a memory) take it with a grain of salt, as far as chronological setting.
1. Chapter 1

Tumblr word prompt by awesomeasusual. In which the mystery of Tsu's tats is explained.

* * *

_**scintilla**: _a tiny trace or spark of a specified quality or feeling.

* * *

Black Star didn't hit his much-delayed growth spurt until he was almost sixteen and she was four months from seventeen. In those four months before her birthday, he somehow managed to sprout five gangly, awkward inches in between eating the entire circus out of house and home.

So it was that Tsubaki was currently stuck staring grimly _up _at his foolish hair while he cheerfully sprayed bread crumbs all over her wagon. He caught her irritated glance and beamed, almost fumbling his food. "Finally caught up to you, didn't I?" he said with horrible smugness. "Told you I would."

She staightened her back and then, when that still didn't restore the world's proper order, she resorted to forcefully smashing down his hair until they were nice and equal.

"Cheating," he reprimanded.

"It's odd," she murmured, shaking her head and returning to her mending, settling Blair's torn skirt carefully in her lap as the wagon bounded energetically along. "I could swear just yesterday you were still… well, not tall." Was her brother taller now, stretching up as sky high and regal as their father had been? She pricked her finger with her needle and winced silently.

He shrugged and crammed the rest of his stolen bread into his mouth all at once, swallowing audibly. "Had to happen some time, didn't it? A god should be tall. My father was tall, if I remember right."

Tsubaki looked up at that, startled. Black Star never spoke about his family, or at least, he hadn't in years, not since he'd talked her into etching their sigil into his arm. "Oh, really?" she finally settled on, trying for a light tone, but her eyes kept straying to the shirt sleeve covering his lone tattoo.

He caught her eyes, again, and raised a brow. "You still feel bad about the damn tattoo? I wanted it. You know that."

"Yes." She sighed as she stabbed her finger again, when the train hit a particularly noticeable bump, and stuck it in her mouth as she laid Blair's skirt aside. "Come here, please." He complied silently and sank down on the bed beside her, watching with— miraculously— only_ half_ an infuriating smirk as she unbuttoned his overshirt and unhooked one suspender, pulling his sleeve down to his elbow.

The star tattoo was just as clean and neat as it had been freshly healed; she'd done good work, even through the blur of tears. "You never show it," she said, a little awkwardly, when he raised an eyebrow. "I was just wondering how it was holding up. Sometimes they blur after a few years."

"You used special ink, didn't you?" he asked unexpectedly, eyes narrowing.

She squeaked. "Um—"

"It smelled a little different than the kind you use when you do your own tattoos. I remember."

Damn the boy and his annoying observational skills. Still, though… Tsubaki tapped a finger gingerly over a still-healing scab on his arm, just below the tattoo, a souvenir from their last fight. As she touched it, her koi undulated gently up onto her palm, fins rippling gracefully, and she smiled. "It was different. For my tattoos I use an alcohol solvent and special metals for the colors. I used to trade for them with an oni girl I met in the mountains back ho— in Japan."

"You traded with a demon?" he said flatly, scowling and fiddling with his drooping suspender.

She grinned a little. "Yes." She could still see the oni girl, lost, shivering and even bluer than usual in the powdery mountain snow. All it had taken was a fire and a meal of trapped rabbit to spark up a friendship— well, as much of a friendship as a summer monster and a human girl could really have. But fresh meat for spirit metals was a reasonable exchange, and the oni girl had only tried to eat Tsubaki twice, which was really very sweet, considering how much she'd liked human flesh. "She wasn't that bad. I hope she's still guarding the mountains. She liked to make the flowers bloom early and they looked lovely in the snow."

Black Star snorted and rolled his eyes extravagantly. "A demon. And you tell_me_ all the time that I'm insane."

"The first time she gave them to me they were a gift!" Tsubaki said, laughing a little. "I certainly wasn't expecting my first tattoo to start _moving."_

"I bet! So then what the hell did you put into me?" he asked as she traced his star again. Endearingly, the tips of his ears were vaguely red.

"The same solvent, but for the black pigment I used soot."

"That's it?" He seemed almost disappointed.

"Well. Not exactly," she admitted at last, finally withdrawing her hand from his tattoo. Her tiger, which had slunk down to her elbow as if to examine whatever it was taking up so much of her attention, gave a pink, gaping yawn and then curled up into a firey ball, tail flicking idly. "I burned a branch from home for the ashes. From the koyamaki that grew in the local temple."

He only blinked, and she could see that he hadn't made the connection. Probably it was to be expected. He spoke the language well enough, but he hadn't lived in Japan as long as she had. "Is that special wood?"

"It's a pine. I loved the pines back home," was all she told him. She didn't tell him that it was one of her land's five sacred trees, grown on sacred ground. The tattoo he'd wanted had such a bloody history, and his skin had been so golden and pure— she'd wanted somehow to give him good luck with blessed ink. The dry, aged pine had smelled so sweet when she burned it that she'd known it had been the right choice.

"Your mermaid's acting funny again," he said after a bit, flopping unceremoniously back onto her bed and staring at her ceiling, still only half painted with incomplete golden swallows.

Tsubaki scowled at the mermaid, who was waving her tail coyly at Black Star from Tsubaki's calf, and tucked her skirt down around her feet. The mermaid flailed silent protest as she disappeared from view. "Hussy!"

Black Star cackled. "When are you going to finish painting in here?"

"I don't know."

"When are you gonna do another tattoo?"

"I don't know. When I get a free moment, for once. Why?" she asked, amused.

He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her from under deep blue lashes. "I like watchin' you make things."

Suddenly he wasn't so lanky and boyish. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was tall and strong, and her breath caught at the look in his eyes. "I'll make something soon, then," she said, wondering at the quiet spark that had appeared from nowhere in her chest.

"Neat." With that, he promptly fell asleep, legs still hanging off her bed and mouth hanging gently open. She rolled her eyes and leaned over to take up her mending again, trying to ignore the window-rattling snores coming from her left. Astonishingly, he even managed to overpower the train.

Her tiger, her _first,_ stretched lazily and sat up to peer with one bright eye from her forearm. She stroked him gently with a finger and he rolled happily onto his back. "For being from an oni, you're not so bad," she whispered.

If she had a demon's gift laced under her skin, it seemed only right that a being of light like Black Star should have sacred ash beneath his. She paused in her stitching to press a hand to her heart, over the secret spark, and if she didn't know any better, she'd almost say it was beating in time with his prodigious snores.


	2. Chapter 2

Tumblr word prompt by ba-sing-saying. In which wee Tsu meets Black Star for the first time.

* * *

**_trust:_** belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.

* * *

She stares at the lanky boy chopping potatoes, then shifts her gaze to Kid, who only shrugs. "You haven't met him yet," Kid offers.

"He has blue hair," she murmurs.

"Your tattoos move. Is blue hair that odd?"

Tsubaki laughs, and then shifts a little to better admire the astonishing skill and rapidity with which the boy is using his potato knife. "No, I didn't mean it that way. It's only that it sort of reminds me of something…"

"Perhaps you knew him. He's from Japan as well." Kid says it casually, but Tsubaki can't contain her lovelorn gasp at the sound of her homeland. Half a year away from it and it's already achy and tingly, a phantom limb pain that never leaves her.

"Oh," she breathes. Kid smiles faintly and pats her on the shoulder with the typical, if sympathetic, incomprehension all these strange circus people share when she talks about the place she came from. They all have itchy feet and wandering hearts, but her feet turn themselves east of their own accord and her heart didn't cross the oceans with her. It stayed among the sweetly whispering pine trees she'd walked beneath for all her thirteen years, all by itself, and no matter how she tried to bait it to return, it refused steadfastly.

_Not my home any more_, she tells herself yet again, even as the strange blue-haired boy begins to— unbelievably— achieve even greater speed in his chopping. Bits of potato fly everywhere, and when he spits a devastating curse in Japanese, she can't contain her giggle.

He spins to face her, eyebrows shooting up. He's somewhere around her age, she sees, a few inches shorter with baby fat still padding his cheeks, but he's got a stretched quality to his limbs that might indicate a future growth spurt.

"Hello," she says, smiling. "You're very handy with a blade."

He just goggles at her wordlessly. "Hello," he says finally, still in Japanese, after an audible swallow. "Neat tattoos."

"Thank you. I'm Tsubaki." Unsaid and sour on her tongue is _Nakatsukasa, _but for now, her brother's deeds are still infamous in the place this boy hails from, and she doesn't much feel like talking about it. She doesn't feel like _thinking_about it, but her brain's as rebellious and cruel as her absent heart.

"Black Star," he says amiably, and she stops breathing.

"Star Clan," she hisses, and her hands are uncomfortably empty in the face of a living monster.

Except— the monster looks hurt, mutinous, snarly all at once, and she's reminded of a kicked puppy. "So? Not my fault, is it? I was a _baby_, I don't remember a damn thing!"

She runs the math quickly in her head, and yes, he's not lying. He would have been very young indeed when the Star Clan massacre turned an entire city scarlet. Still, though. He's got a knife in his hand and he's already proven to be handy with it, and she doesn't at all trust someone with such a bloodline to be anywhere near sane, so she only forces her face into a semblance of a smile and nods. He just keeps staring as she edges out of the mess tent, and she notices that his eyes are as green as pine needles.

A month later, he corners her while she's mucking out the horse's train car, flailing a little. "I'm not like the rest of my family! All right?"

Tsubaki grips her pitchfork tighter and pins her eyes somewhere over his shoulder. "Of course not."

It's a blatant lie and the sudden slitting of his eyes proves that he knows it. "Nakatsukasa," he whispers, and she grits her teeth.

"Who told you that?"

He shrugs. "I can read, you know." She barely holds in her disbelieving snort. "I get papers from home whenever I can. I know what your brother did."

"Be quiet!"

Black Star is relentless, taking another step closer. "How can you judge me when your family's evil too?"

"Not my family," she chokes out, winding her fingers in her ponytail and pulling, desperate for an anchor. "Just one!"

He sighs, and it's not a rambunctious boy's sigh but an old, exhausted, somber one. "Yes. Still. You're one of us now, you're with the circus, and you should trust us."

She pulls her hands away from her tangled hair, gritting her teeth, and stares him down. "Said the fox to the hare," she told him, in their native tongue, and his lips thinned almost viciously before he turned and stomped away.

* * *

For such a habitually energetic boy, Black Star is capable of being very focused, and it startles her. She pauses, gentling Kiku with a firm word and a hand on his golden withers, and stares through the branches in something like a trance.

Black Star stills, squints, then explodes into a flurry of flips, landing easily on his feet and doing another celebratory cartwheel when he sees that all four of his knives are squarely in the center of the target painted roughly onto the tree.

"You can come watch me work my magic if you want," he calls loudly, and she flushes.

"No, thank you," she answers uncomfortably, clucking to Kiku and tugging the reins.

"Don't go. You'll be missing out. I'm really damn good!" he shouts.

Her feet stop, almost against her will. "You throw knives," she says, more to fill the silence than anything.

He nods, a little sweaty with a leaf stuck in his outrageous hair, grinning like a fool at her, apparently thrilled that they're finally having something approaching a civil conversation. "You and I should spar some time. I've seen you polishing your sword. It's a nice one." He sounds more enthusiastic than she's ever heard him, barring the one time Mira somehow procured mass amounts of chocolate.

Taken aback, she mumbles out a vague agreement, and then somehow he's hustled her back to the stables, untacked Kiku, and put him away. In less then ten minutes they're circling across from each other with sharp objects in their hands.

He lunges, and he's not bad, but she twirls out of the way easily enough and sends him sprawling with a lightly extended ankle.

"You _are _good. Like I thought," he says, sounding unaccountably pleased even with dirt all over his nose, and then he springs at her with such skill that she only just holds him off. _Maybe this is all his cursed blood gave him_, she thinks, astonished. They lock blades after a moment and she gapes at him, panting open-mouthed._  
_

He's still grinning from ear to ear. She thinks about her own bad blood, about her heart, still riding reluctant shotgun in her traitor brother's pocket an ocean away, and she lets her arms wobble, just slightly.

He doesn't take the opening. There are no witnesses, and her vitals were cleanly exposed. This odd, wild boy could kill her with a single deft twist of his lightning-quick blade, but he doesn't.

Instead he stabs his sword into the dirt and links his hands behind his head, watching her cannily, green eyes very sharp, at odds with his fool's smile. "Trust me yet?"

He's worked so hard to make her feel at home here, among these strange people in this unfamiliar land, in spite of all her hypocritical suspicions. She smiles back helplessly and lets her blade drop too. "Perhaps."

"We should do this again! Practice makes perfect even more perfect, you know?"

He bounces around her like a squirrel and she starts to laugh. "All right." There's a very strange feeling in her chest as she watches him catapult off a tree trunk, and she thinks maybe her heart has decided it's too lonely wandering by itself, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Tumblr word prompt by awesomeasusual. In which it's a hot summer day and Soul and Maka talk about nothing in particular.

* * *

_**sempiternal**: _eternal and unchanging; everlasting.

* * *

The Appalachians are the first mountains of their kind she can ever remember seeing.

"You've got a memory like a target after Black Star's done practicing his knives," Soul tells her irritably. "Makes sense you'd think they're something special."

"But they are!" she wants to protest, but he's in one of his _moods_ and his eyes are half-lidded and poisonous, so she contents herself with a mild snarl in his direction before she abandons him to his sulk. She clambers atop the dog's traincar and settles onto her stomach, soaking up the almost painful warmth from the sun-heated metal roof as she stares at the mountains, face cushioned on one arm.

They're deep and dark, lush and ragged all at once, rough curves gentled over with trees older than Death. Tall as they are, rippling ominously around the winding train tracks like the splintered ribs of a shattered god, they look tired.

Maka can sympathize. She feels tired, too, these days, blunted by the constant sandpaper of Soul's convoluted brain. He's always snapping at her and then apologizing and then doing it all over again. It's irritating and infuriating and, friends or not, it's not very appealing to try so hard to help him when he doesn't seem to want to help _himself_ much.

The mountains loom at her, ancient and uncaring. She sighs and soaks up the heat like a lizard, closing her eyes and sort of hoping she'll get baked off to a cleaner, less selfish state of mind.

"Maka?"

"You." She cracks an eye and gives Soul her very best glare. "I'm baking. With the mountains. You're not invited."

He opens his mouth, pauses to ponder her words, then descends a single step down the train car's rickety ladder, until only his eyes and his madman shock of hair are visible over the edge. "All right."

"You're not leaving," she points out after a moment.

"I— uh—"

He's all sharp edges, teeth and aggressive elbows and a boyishly protruding Adam's apple, and it's almost jarring after getting hypnotized by the trees. "Just be quiet if you're going to sit up here," she sighs at last.

He climbs up, just slowly enough to pretend it was his idea all along, and flops on his back beside her, lying one hand half over his eyes for shade in the fierce sun and picking at flakes of rust with the other. "What's this for?" he asks after a while, once she's descended back into her sunbaked reptilian daze.

"Mm." It takes her a second to blink back from white-hot heat and slumbering green. "You _would_ be doing it wrong. You're looking at the sky, stupid. I'm looking at the mountains. I told you they're special."

He doesn't move, just keeps squinting up into irradiated blue. "Didn't say _how._"

"They're old," she offers ponderously, stretching and lying her cheek onto the metal; it's so hot that tears rise to the eye closest to it, but it feels good, too. "Old, old. Harvar said they used to be massive, really astonishing, and over time they got worn down."

"By what?"

"Dragons and magic," she mumbles. He rewards her with a dry snort. "Wind and weather, I suppose."

He finally abandons his cloud hunting and rolls over onto his stomach, rising onto his elbows and propping his chin in his hands. A stray breeze, smelling of cooked earth and decaying forest litter, sweeps over them, and Maka sucks it in with something sort of like reverence. He slants a look at her from under bleached-bone lashes.

"Keep looking," she admonishes comfortably, yawning. He rolls his eyes obnoxiously.

"This is useless."

"You can't do anything without making sure no one thinks you're taking it seriously, can you?"

"I take you seriously."

"I— that's not what I meant."

"I take my music seriously."

"Yes, yes." They lie in shared lethargy for a while.

"All right," Soul mumbles at last, yawning a little himself, neck cracking audibly in the sleepy high-noon hush. "They're old. Older than anything. We're little pieces of dust to them."

"But we can still think they're beautiful."

"I guess it's interesting," he concedes, finally, before wriggling back over to his previous sky-gazing position. Maka flops an arm across his forehead for him, for shade, and he grunts, planting one of those young sharp elbows into her ribs and leaving it there

"This sun is lethal. I feel like I could sleep a long time," she says out loud, mostly to the mountains.

"If this was one of your fairy tales those old mountains would be fucking_laughing_ at you," Soul slurs, eyes totally closed now beneath her forearm; his eyelashes tickle.

"Now you've got it," she tells him, pleased, nudging against his unblunted elbow, and he grins at her.


	4. Chapter 4

Tumblr word prompt by whos-that-foxi-lady. In which things get fluffy and lame and probably OOC.

* * *

**Caligynephobia**; Fear of beautiful women.

* * *

Maka was not having a very good day.

It had started with a mildly irritating thing; she'd woken up and discovered a pimple brewing smack dab in the middle of her cheek. Then she'd found a hole in the only pair of trousers she had that even came close to fitting her, so right now she was swimming in a pair of Marie's castoffs. Her hair was absolutely refusing to cooperate in any way, shape, or form, to the point of Kid actually grimacing and informing her that her crooked pigtails were going to give him heartburn.

Maka could have handled all of this, though. It wasn't as if she were the kind of girl particularly invested in her looks; half the time, she was running around covered in mud and horsehair anyway. She wouldn't have minded so much if she weren't currently surrounded by six of the most unfairly beautiful women on the continent.

Mira was sitting to her right, bandages so white they were nearly glowing. Sunlight filtered through the branches of the willow overhead, and the pattern of light and dark it painted on Mira made her look like a piece of art in progress, quick lovely brushstrokes brought to life by the sly glint in her black eyes.

Tsubaki, on Maka's left, was equally gorgeous, sitting with her feet curled gracefully up under her pink skirts. Maka felt one hand rise miserably to her pathetic, drooping pigtails as she watched Tsubaki's dark waterfall of hair glimmer against the vibrant backdrop of her tattoos.

She didn't want to look at Liz, Marie, and Pattie, but she did anyway, and immediately regretted it as a wave of self-consciousness swept over her. They were all so golden and bright, and if Liz's pretty perfect face was a little tense and suspicious, it only served to make Pattie and Marie glow more in comparison.

"Maka, are you all right?" Blair said curiously, immaculately lacquered fingernails raking through a lock of purple hair.

"Oh, yes, sorry," Maka said with forced brightness. She tried to look away from Blair, but somehow her gaze got stuck in the ripe cleavage spilling out of the other woman's blouse. It wasn't fair. How on earth did these women do it? They were all so different, so unique, and they were all very dangerous, which made them even more beautiful. "Actually, I forgot something," Maka choked to no one, pushing herself up and hurrying away across the field.

Pattie blinked limpidly after her. "What's wrong with Maka?"

"Don't know," Liz said, frowning. The women all looked at each other with raised brows.

* * *

"Maka, you in here?"

She cringed and had to swallow before she could speak. "Yes. Come on in." Soul opened up the door to Tsubaki's trailer and poked his ruffled white head in, holding something out to her.

She did a double take. "Flowers?" Surely her eyes were deceiving her.

He grunted irritably, focusing on her shoes. "Pattie put her gun to my head and told me I had to bring you some. What the hell did you say to her, anyway? She's fucking terrifying when she wants to be."

"She- she- really? I didn't say anything to her, but thank you," Maka said in embarassed, delighted confusion, taking the bouquet from him and sneaking a quick sniff. They smelled wonderful.

"Eh. Well, anyway, there you go," Soul said brusquely, sounding rather as if he'd just hacked off his own arm and handed it over. He was about to shut the door and make good on his escape when he froze.

She turned back to him, brows raised. "What?"

It seemed he'd finally raised his eyes from her shoes, because he was staring her with a rather thunderstruck expression. "What the hell are you wearing?" he croaked after a moment.

Maka felt her face burning as she smoothed a hand over the pale gray silk of her skirt, part of a performance outfit borrowed from Mira. No doubt she looked ridiculous, like a little girl playing dressup. Mira was built like a blade, smooth purposeful curves and defined spare lines; in this outfit, she would have been astonishing. But it was just a little too big for Maka, particularly in the hips, and she tugged at it helplessly, growing more upset the longer Soul eyed her.

Finally she burst out, "I know I look silly, all right, you didn't have to say anything!" To her absolute dismay, she could feel a beginning prick behind her eyes that told of tears.

But then Soul said, a bit gruffly, "That's not what I meant. You look fine. You look, ah, well-" Then he stumbled to a stop and returned his gaze to her shoes.

She looked at him, not understanding until she saw the flush painting his cheeks. "Oh," she mouthed.

"You look pretty," he mumbled before whirling away and slamming the door behind him.

She looked at the flowers and then back down at the shining silvery fabric swaying around her thighs. The way he'd looked at her just then- it was the same way Sid looked at Mira, or Black Star at Tsubaki, or Stein at Marie. Those beautiful women- and yet Soul chose to look at her that way, messy boyish Maka, like she was one of them.

She made sure to put the flowers in water before heading out to prepare for her performance, and when she stood in a line beside all the other women to take a bow at the end of the show, she thought about Soul's face and for once, she wasn't so afraid she didn't belong.


	5. Chapter 5

Tiny drabble requested by anonymous. I gave 'em fluff. Never say I didn't do anything for you all. Set later after DC theoretically... ends.

* * *

"A tattoo," Soul said incredulously. She only stared back at him, so he lifted a finger, lightning-quick, and stabbed at her freshly inked wrist.

"Ouch! Soul!" She danced backwards, glaring.

"A tattoo. Really? Let me see it again," he ordered, displeased. What on earth was she thinking, letting Tsubaki mark up her gorgeous silk-and-cream skin? She put her wrist forward slowly, pouting a little. Obviously she'd been expecting him to gush over it or something equally stupid.

He nabbed her fingers in his and turned her hand over in his, eyeing the design stamped below her palm, on the tissue-thin skin over her lacey blue-green veins. "I get the horse," he said at last, referring to the rich crimson silhouette that was clearly meant to be Aka, prancing and proud, "But what the hell's the thing behind it? A book?"

"Of course it's a book, can't you tell?" she snapped, flushing. It was indeed a book, simplified to a bare outline that framed the scarlet horse nicely. Tsubaki had done a good job, of course, but still- Maka's skin was practically a religion for him. He really couldn't decide how he felt about the whole thing.

She glowered at him as he stood staring.

He raised an eyebrow. "You would get a damn book on yourself," he said grudgingly, releasing her hand. "Predictable."

She didn't say anything, oddly, she just looked at her toes and turned a sort of dull pink, blinking rapidly. He squinted at her.

"What?" she said at last, far too placidly. When she saw the narrow look he was giving her, she said hastily, in an obvious attempt to play normal, "Are you going to be rude or are you going to compliment me, because it's there for good, you know!"

He persevered. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I- uh- well-" The pink dusting her cheeks deepened.

"Come on, Maka, spit it out," he commanded, intrigued. Judging by her blush, this was going to be _very_ interesting.

She frowned stormily, but finally, fixing her gaze somewhere in the area of his chest, she admitted, "It's a book because I like books but it's also a book because of all that time you spent reading to me, before I got my memory back."

He goggle at her. His heart took flight and did several loop-de-loops around his head before swooping dizzyingly off into the sunset. "Really?"

"Yes, really," she said grumpily.

He slung an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to one delightfully flushed cheek, more than a little giddy, though he tried his best to maintain at least a modicum of his typical dignity. "That's neat," was all he said, but then he and Maka spent at least ten minutes grinning like fools at each other until they had to go start the show.


	6. Chapter 6

Tumblr word prompt by awesomeasusual. In which Soul is moody.

* * *

**bucolic**: of or relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life.

* * *

"Winter."

Maka snorted. "You would like winter best."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Soul scowled at her.

She only crossed her arms and stared him down. "Isn't it obvious? You're all gloomy and dark. You probably love it when it's rainy and mucky outside."

Mildly stung by that, he showed her his teeth and made a point of tossing aside the copy of The Wendigo he'd been about to start reading to her; she glared at it as it clattered to the floor of his trailer, obviously outraged, probably both by his rebellion and by his rough treatment of a precious book. "I'm not gloomy or dark!" he snapped.

"So now you're just not going to read to me?" she cried, throwing her hands in the air.

He shot her one last foul look, gave the hapless book a good kick until it skidded under his bed, and turned away. She sniffed audibly, and when he snuck a peek at her a minute later, she was hunched over, with a terrible look on her face, glowering out his window. One slim, tanned hand was holding back his dark curtains, and her golden head was leant against the glass; it seemed like her hair caught up all the sunlight from outside and reflected it, filling up his home with unfamiliar warmth.

Maka flicked her eyes at him; he glanced away quickly, attempting to look mean out of sheer principle. Judging by her quiet chuckle, it didn't work, and after a while his eyes slid closed. It was nice, having someone kind around to let in the sunshine. The train bounced and leapt merrily along the tracks, and even with his eyes shut, he knew the green landscape flashing past outside would match her eyes perfectly.

"Are you falling asleep?" she said after a little while.

"Not at all," he lied, stifling a yawn with his eyes still shut. "Waiting for an apology, is all."

"An apology? For what, calling you gloomy? Because there's no one in the entire circus who'd agree with it, is there?" Her sarcasm was clear.

"Yes," was all he said. "You're terribly cruel, bearcat."

She smothered what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. "You've no idea."

"Oh, that's a laugh. I know exactly how cruel you are. I've got the bruises to prove it."

This time, she did giggle, and he cracked an eye, vaguely pleased at the sound. "All right! I'm sorry! You're not wintery at all! You're-"

"Warm and sunny?" Soul suggested, trying to sound snide, but his words came out more plaintive than he would have liked.

She pushed the curtains more fully open and wriggled around to stare at him full-on; the fields whizzing behind her were green, just as he'd thought, ripe and lush and rippling in the winds, but her gaze was more of everything. "To me you are," she said quietly, faint pink blooming underneath her freckles. "You know, when you aren't calling me rude names or telling me to leave you alone."

He grimaced, but on the inside, he was terrifyingly tingly. "Right," he drawled. "I think you hit your head at some point, bearcat."

She waved a hand and wrinkled her nose. "I apologized. Are you going to read to me, or not?"

"Oh, I don't know. A little begging on bended knee wouldn't go amiss- Shit! Goddamn, that hurt! Fine!"

She smirked at him, as pretty as a picture inside the frame of his window, the brightest thing in his trailer and his life. "Good!"

He sneered at her from habit and leaned off his chair to snatch up the book. "A considerable number of hunting parties were out that year without finding so much as a fresh trail," he started, and now it was her eyes that drifted closed as she listened, peaceful face surrounded by the blurred green and gold of the countryside as the train rattled onwards through wheat and corn and cotton.


	7. Chapter 7

Tumblr theme prompt for 'Unbind me' or 'set me free' by fabulousanima.

* * *

"Hey, Harvar. Light?" Soul says. Harvar obliges with a snap of his staticky fingers, and Soul takes a deep and appreciative breath of his newly lit cigarette.

Maka glides by, arms loaded down with several bridles and various horse things, and frowns at him. "Those things smell terrible," she informs him.

He snorts a little, amused by how much she's carrying; she's practically drowning under it all, but will she take two trips? Hell no. She's far too stubborn. "They're relaxing," he finally informs her.

She scowls harder, face crinkling up. "You smell like Stein," she says insultingly before swanning off, nose in the air.

He gapes after her, then whirls on Harvar. "I do not. Tell me I don't smell like that snakehearted bastard!"

Harvar blinks at him calmly. "Cigarettes are cigarettes," he says finally, pronouncing the words as if it's taken him a long time to work them out.

Soul wilts back against the side of the train car they're leaning on, scowling. Harvar is staring at him oddly, and Soul stares back once he notices. "What?" he barks.

"Not a thing," Harvar murmurs before hopping up into his train, a trail of sparks floating in the air behind him.

* * *

The next day, Soul can't for the life of him figure out why Kid is staring so much. Sure, they haven't seen each other in quite a while, what with Kid's assault on Brooklyn, but it's getting a little unnerving. Kid's eyes do this swirly thing when he's focusing intently. At last Soul can't take it anymore, so he turns sharply and snaps, "What is it? What are you staring at, skunkface?"

"Skunkface," Kid says slowly, eyes spinning. "Before I left you would have called me at least several highly vulgar and creative terms and then shoved me to the ground if you caught me staring."

Soul can only gape at him. "I- you- no- no I wouldn't have!" he sputters at last. "Bastard," he adds darkly before stalking off.

* * *

Soul's tired, hot, and grumpy. It's been a long, blazing summer day, and tomorrow they have to tear down the tents to prepare for hitting the road again, and tonight he has to get through at least a chapter to avoid Maka's wrath. At least the last of the rubes are trickling out; he shoves his mask up onto the top of his head, relishing the cooler air across his skin, and keeps playing idly, churning out a few tunes for the remainder of the audience as they leave the big top.

Then someone taps his shoulder. He cranes his neck back. It's a girl, dark-haired and doll-faced, probably a little older than he is, but she has a nice smile. "What?" he says.

"You're very good at that," she observes, pointing at his piano. "I'm a pianist too, you know."

"Really," he drawls, feeling a bead of sweat slip down his neck. "I thought I was the last one left in the world."

She squints, thrown by his deadpan delivery, and then shrugs it off. "Who taught you? I mean, where did you school for it?"

He goes rigid. "Nowhere. I'm rather busy, if you don't mind."

She isn't put off in the least. "Oh, but I'd really love to know! Please?" Then she walks around him and leans on his piano.

He grits his teeth, closes his eyes, counts to ten, and says very softly and dangerously, "Get off my piano and get out." There's a startled breath as she finally notices his teeth in the dim lighting, and then running footsteps. Satisfied, he keeps playing, just for fun, because the tent's empty now.

"I cannot believe you didn't just send her off in tears to have nightmares for the rest of her life," Mira says, amused. He startles a little and opens his eyes at the sound of her voice.

"Oh," he mutters, inexplicably embarassed. "Well. She's not worth the effort."

"Of course," Mira says, lips twitching. "You know, you've really changed for the better lately. You're almost tolerable for more than a minute."

He snarls at her. She just snickers and walks off to begin disassembling a piece of equipment. Soul stares at his piano before getting up to wipe that stupid girl's fingerprints off it. Mira's not wrong, really, and everyone has been acting so surprised by him lately. Maybe he really has gone soft. It doesn't feel bad, though. It doesn't feel as dangerous as it used to.

Then he hears Maka's voice coming from outside the tent, singing a few lines of some song interspersed with a few chiming laughs and mocking reprimands. She's with her horse, he knows, and when he looks down at his reflection in the glossy surface of his piano, he's smiling, all his teeth on full display.

She's taken things from him, his little bearcat, but she's also given him things, and one of those is freedom.


	8. Chapter 8

Tumblr word prompt by awesomeasusual. In which Black Star's a brat and Tsubaki is lovely, as usual.

* * *

**loquacious:** tending to talk a great deal; talkative;wordy.

* * *

"Does he ever stop talking?" Maka whispered to Soul.

"Never ever," Soul hissed back disapprovingly before ripping into his apple. Maka hummed in irritation and propped her chin on her hand, staring at Black Star in consternation. Right now, the blue-haired boy was trying to wheedle Stein into giving him stronger fuel for his firebreathing. Thankfully, the scientist was refusing.

Soul grimaced as Black Star gave a particularly high-pitched whine. "Please! Please please please! Come on, if you can brew up moonshine as strong as you do then I know you've got something amazing I could use for my firebreathing! Please?"

"Dear god," Maka mumbled, putting her forehead down against the tabletop. Everyone else in the mess tent appeared to share her sentiments.

Stein took a ferocious gulp of his coffee, apparently unfazed by the visible steam curling up from it, and said stoutly, "No. I refuse categorically. You've no talent for it and you'll burn us all to the ground in a minute."

Black Star gave a great, wounded gasp that seemed entirely authentic. "What? You're joking, aren't you? I haven't lit anything on fire in days! Please? Please? That's not fair, Stein, you can't science up something incredible and not share it!"

"When did I ever admit to having invented anything like what you're speaking of?" Stein grumbled darkly.

Black Star skipped around the table and squatted down on the bench beside Stein, the better to stare at him. His begging devolved into a steady sequence of drawn-out pleas interspersed with a few colorful insults and some inhuman moans, all of which Stein ignored.

"What willpower," Maka said in astonishment, apparently referring to Stein. "I'd have thrown Black Star through a wall ten minutes ago."

"Well, you're a naturally bloodthirsty person," Soul said absently. She scowled at him for a moment before turning back to Black Star and his increasingly desperate cajoling.

"My ears are going to fall off," Mira muttered from across the table.

"If I weren't already dead I'd beg one of you to kill me," Sid agreed dourly. Even Blair looked irritated.

But then Black Star stopped his rantings mid-syllable, and it was so astoundingly wonderful that the whole tent looked up to see what had finally shut him up.

Tsubaki, standing in the doorway, blinked as everyone's gaze fell on her. The silence was almost dizzying. "Hello," she said sweetly, smiling. There was an audible thump as Black Star tried to leap off the bench, caught his foot, and smacked facefirst into the ground.

"Oh," Maka said mischievously to Soul. "I think we know the only thing that can distract him now!"


	9. Chapter 9

Tiny teeny itty bitty Tumblr word prompt by awesomeasusual.

* * *

**mercurial:** characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood

* * *

He finished aloud the last chapter of _Wuthering Heights_ even though she was asleep, mostly because he hoped it would give her good dreams, and then he proceeded to listen to the sound of her breath playing off the rain.

She breathed like she lived, strong and deep and steady, and he found himself shutting his eyes to better hear it. Then she shifted and curled in on herself and he shot upright, snatching a blanket off his bed and settling it around her immediately.

He tried to get interested in another one of the books he'd stolen from her satchel, but none of them could compare to her warm living sounds, so he pinched out the lantern, kicked off his boots, and stared into the blackness as the rain drummed gaily onto his roof.

She was such a wild little thing. Honestly, sometimes he thought he was dealing with twins or possibly triplets, all identical, running around with different personalities just to confuse his head. The night he'd met her, she'd shrieked and fought like a trapped animal, conquering her fear with a warlord's fury. The day she'd woken up, freshly dipped into her amnesia, she'd been the perfect worked for the circus, amiable and sweet, but she hadn't been able to douse the green fire in her eyes. Then there was the Maka of fifteen minutes ago, curled peacefully on his floor with her gaze fixed steadily on his face, drinking in every word he read. She had a way of propping her cheek on her hand and pulling her knees into her chest, and it was so very calm and devout that he would occasionally stutter.

Even after so many weeks with her, getting used to her ever-changing ways, slowly gaining the ability to read her mercurial moods, he could never see what was coming.

He traced the dim shadows of her lips in his memory and reflected that perhaps the last wasn't entirely true. Maybe he never knew exactly what she'd do, but he always knew it would be brave and sterling and beautiful. Perhaps she wasn't quite as unpredictable as he'd thought. He remembered her flinty, endless green gaze and her breathing was loud and steady in his ears.


	10. Chapter 10

Tumblr word prompt (one of my faves) by fabulousanima.

* * *

**flabbergasted**: surprise greatly, astonish.

* * *

The first time he ever saw her perform, riding her red horse like a coming storm, he missed a note, and he had thought at the time that such a misstep was bad enough. The fourth time he saw her perform, though, something even worse happened.

She entered the ring with a flourish, Aka moving beneath her like they were one, and the crowd roared approval. He trilled out a quick drumroll-esque entrance song for her without even thinking, matching his notes to the swift steps of her horse, watching her the entire while and thanking the god he didn't believe in that he was good enough to play blind. It would have been nearly impossible to tear his eyes away from her. She was too beautiful, too fey, and the sight of her bare thighs straddling the leather of her saddle did something tight and hot to his insides.

He kept playing, riffing the classics for her as she flipped backwards and nudged Aka into a full-blown gallop, spraying the front row of the audience with sand. They ate it up. He heard a distant roar outside, one of Blair's lions, and his fingers automatically tapped out a deep and dreadful chord.

Maka's eyes met his through his scarlet mask as she came around the ring again, wickedly alight with adrenaline, and when she tore her gaze away, he finally managed to notice that she was matching her movements to his music.

Soul's fingers crashed down on the keys like a tsunami; Maka threw her hands up and sent Aka skidding to a stop before wheeling around to mock-charge the audience. He played an eerie pounding sequence like an enraged heart, and she curved backwards and forwards with a sensual rhythm that put lava in his marrow. He slowed the melody to a dainty, otherwordly tinkling, and she slowed her horse, until he was prancing practically in place, knees rising flashily almost up to his chest, while she hung miraculously off the saddle, one taut pale leg slung over the proud arch of Aka's chestnut mane.

His mouth was dry and the power he felt as she matched his every keystroke was far past intoxicating. She gave a languid little shake in perfect time to his impromptu cadenza and the sheer melody of her movements drove him wild.

He rushed on, faster, hands flying across the ivories, and the golden girl and the red horse moved with him, but after a moment the uneasy murmurings of the crowd alerted him to just how harsh his music had become. Maka kneed Aka to the edge of the ring and swept by, shooting him a worried glance, but he couldn't seem to stop himself, and she was still moving to the music.

But then she stilled down, body wilting down like a flower in autumn, and somehow it was now his hands obeying her, because the music calmed too, relaxing into a more sedate melody. She slid sideways across the saddle and hung over it, back arched, and when her face was hidden from the crowd, she flashed him a proud and lovely smile.

He managed to control himself with the memory of that smile for the rest of the night, even after she and her horse swept out of the ring to thunderous applause. When he was done, he gave his faithful piano a quick pat and marched out to the horses. Maka was there, of course, tossing a pitchfork full of hay to Tsubaki's palomino with characteristic strength.

"Hello," he said roughly, a little afraid of what she might say. She wasn't anywhere near stupid enough to miss the strange dance they'd been doing, nor the viciousness leaking through his music.

But she just smiled at him and raised her brows. "That was fun, wasn't it?" she said impishly. He squinted carefully at her face in the dim light and was entirely flabbergasted to learn that she meant it. She had loved it, loved performing to his songs, loved influencing his hands. It hadn't frightened her at all.

"I suppose," was all he got out, but the quiet curve of her lips was proof enough of her understanding.


	11. Chapter 11

Tumblr word prompt by fabulousanima.

* * *

**Mamihlapinatapei:** The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.

* * *

She can always feel him watching her, and normally she takes an odd sort of comfort in knowing that he's wandering around nearby, but right now, all she wants is to snap his scrawny little fingers and kick him onto the train tracks.

The prickling at her back continues, and finally she throws down the pitchfork she'd been using to clean out the stalls and wheels around, pointing unerringly at him, practically shrieking, "Soul! You!"

He skulks out from around the corner he'd been lurking behind and lifts his brows, regarding her as if _she_ were the crazy one, thumbs stuck nonchalantly in his suspenders. "You squalled, bearcat?"

"Stop staring at me," she implores furiously. "Just stop it!"

Those otherwordly eyes narrow a little as he thinks, but then his mouth gives that quavering twitch that he pretends is a smile. "Oh. You're still angry with me, then?"

She stands very straight and says carefully, "No, of course not. Why would I be angry?"

His lips quirk again, almost imperceptibly, and she wants to murder him all over again. "I already told you, I'll finish the chapter if you ask nice."

"Self-righteous dog," she spits, stomping both her feet in some sort of rage-driven Rumpelstilstkin dance. She throws both hands up and adds spitefully, "I am not going to beg!"

He rolls his eyes. "You already know Jane and Rochester end up together. It's a book, it's gonna have a happy ending, why do you have to finish reading it?"

She falls still and stares at him, breathing deep, alfalfa sweet and heavy in her nostrils. Behind her, the horses shift gently. He sounds so bitter. Before she can stop herself, she says, "Do you have such a problem with happy endings, then?"

Soul reaches over and snags a piece of hay, twirling it absently between two fingers, not looking at her. "Kind of silly, aren't they?" he mutters after a while. She strokes Aka's velvet nose, presses her own against it, and waits for Soul to finish. Eventually he adds, "There's a reason they happen in books and fairy tales."

Maka gives Aka's white blaze a good, final scratching and edges over to Soul. She takes the other end of the hay he's holding and tugs gently, surprising him into looking up at her. "That's not true. People write about things they want, don't they? So people want their happy endings, and if you really want something, it can happen."

He tilts his head and for a heartbeat she can see a fang glinting from behind his lips. It makes her feel uncomfortably warm all over. "People want the villain to die," he says, still sourly.

Maka hates it when he looks so sad, so beaten down and afraid, when he tries so hard to haul his tattered shreds of viciousness over it all and pretend he doesn't care. "People want the fairy to sweep in and save the village," she corrects, watching the cruel twist of his lips soften just a little.

He tugs on the hay, then drops it and settles his fingers around her wrist, light as air. "They want her to lift the curse," he muses.

When she says hoarsely, "People want the prince and the princess to save each other," his eyes lift to her own. She's still hot, but now she's cold too, impossibly, shivering and breathless as the rising sun haloes his white head.

He moves his hand from her wrist and strokes up the underside of her forearm, up her shoulder, and then presses his fingertips against her collarbone, just beside the scars she got for him. Maka is terribly afraid she's about to faint, to simply fall over in the hay, swooning like the classic damsel in distress.

The thought irritates her. "You know I can fight monsters," she whispers, unable to move.

"I know," he whispers back, leaning forward just a fraction. Her toes curl invisibly inside her battered boots.

"I'm not weak or helpless," she says dimly.

"I know, bearcat." He taps a single finger against the dip where her collarbones meet. She licks her lips and now he's not smiling at all, not even in his secret way. Instead he's standing very close, burning up all her oxygen, and looking down at her with eyes that are the sweetest, clearest shade of red she could ever imagine.

Then there's a great crash off in the distance, a feminine scream of outrage, and the telltale sounds of Black Star fleeing can be heard, closely followed by Tsubaki on the warpath. Soul and Maka step apart, and she mumbles something unintelligible before snatching her pitchfork back up.

Soul coughs, sticks his hands in his pockets, and heads off, but he stops for just a moment and says softly, "I'll finish Jane Eyre tonight, if you want. I've got nothing better to do."

She smiles.


End file.
